1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-forming apparatus capable of forming an image by applying an image-forming solvent appropriately on an image-recording material such as a light-sensitive material or an image-receiving material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image-forming apparatuses, which record images by using two types of image-recording materials such as a light-sensitive material and an image-receiving material, are known.
The image-forming apparatus of this type includes therein an image-forming solvent application section having a tank for storing an image-forming solvent to be applied to a light-sensitive material, and a thermal development-transfer section including a heating drum and a pair of endless pressure belts adapted to rotate with the heating drum in pressure-contact with the outer periphery of the heating drum.
The light-sensitive material, on which an image has been exposed while the material is held and conveyed through the image-forming apparatus, is immersed in the water stored in the image-forming solvent tank of the image-forming solvent application section. After being coated with water in this way, the light-sensitive material is sent into the thermal development-transfer section. The image-receiving material is also sent into the thermal development-transfer section in a manner similar to the light-sensitive material.
In the thermal development-transfer section, the light-sensitive material coated with water is superposed with the image-receiving material, and the superposed light-sensitive material and image-receiving material are wound in close contact on the outer periphery of the heating drum. Further, the two materials are held and conveyed between the heating drum and an endless pressure belt. The light-sensitive material thus is thermally developed, while at the same time, the image is transferred to the image-receiving material so as to form (record) a predetermined image on the image-receiving material.
After the light-sensitive material is immersed in and coated with the water which is provided as an image-forming solvent in the tank, the water that has contacted the light-sensitive material still remains in the tank. As a result, bacteria propagate in the tank by using the slight amount of organic materials, which has eluted from the light-sensitive material, as a source of nutrition. Consequently, the water is liable to be contaminated, which may deteriorate both the image-forming apparatus and the image quality.
A possible solution to this drawback is to keep the water supplying elements such as the tank out of contact with the light-sensitive material and to eject and apply water drops to the light-sensitive material from the water supply. The mere ejection of water drops, however, causes uneven application of atomized water to the light-sensitive material, with the result that the portions of the water drops contacting each other coalesce whereas there are portions of the light-sensitive material to which water is not applied, so that it is difficult to achieve uniform application.